Most Religious Countries and Most Atheist Countries

Artikel berikut menyorot mengenai beberapa statistik merosotnya kepercayaan terhadap agama, seiring majunya pendidikan dan ilmu pengetahuan dari 57 Negara. Artikel sumber dapat ditemukan di huffingtonpost.com.

Which countries are the most and least religious? The WIN-Gallup International “Religion and Atheism Index” collected data from 57 countries in order to find out.

The Religiosity Index represents the percentage of the population who self-describe themselves as ‘a religious person’ in the question worded as: Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person or a convinced atheist?
Some interesting takeaways:

1. The poor are more religious than the rich. People in the bottom income groups are 17 percent more religious than those in the top income groups.

2. Globally, the number of those claiming to be religious has dropped by 9 percent from 2005 to 2011, while the number of people identifying themselves as atheists has risen by 3 percent.

3. Four countries have experienced a drop in religiosity in their populations that is greater than 20 percent between 2005 and 2012. France and Switzerland saw decreases of 21 percent, while Ireland’s number of faithful declined by 22 percent and Vietnam’s by 23 percent.

Jakarta Globe: Apakah Ateisme Diperbolehkan di Indonesia?

Berikut adalah artikel opini di Jakarta Globe yang menekankan bahwa ateisme tidak melanggar Pancasila. Artikel lengkapnya dapat dilihat di http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/the-thinker-is-atheism-allowed/

Alexander Aan, a civil servant in Dharmasraya, West Sumatra, was beaten and charged with blasphemy after writing “God does not exist” on his Facebook page.

The response has ranged from condemnation by several international organizations to support by local citizens and the Indonesian Council of Ulema. Many people have invoked the first principle of Pancasila, the state ideology, to make the argument that atheism — and Alexander — have no place in Indonesia.

But is this really the case? Has atheism been banned by Pancasila since the dawn of the Indonesian state? Since the argument is based on the text of a legal document, let’s examine this question from a legal perspective.

Jakarta globe: Mendidik anak tanpa Tuhan

Berikut adalah artikel liputan media Jakarta Globe tentang bagaimana keluarga atheis di indonesia membesarkan anaknya tanpa Tuhan. Artikel aslinya bisa disimak di : http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/features/raising-kids-without-god-atheist-parents-in-indonesia/

The members of Indonesian Atheist Parents come together to answer a simple question: How do you survive as an atheist parent in a country where such a stance is considered blasphemous?

In a place where a hint of holding an unpopular opinion — about God, no less — can land a person in jail, or at the very least make someone a social outcast, it can often feel like raising a child to think differently is impossible for both child and parent.

For too many, the social and administrative challenges will be too much. Seemingly trivial tasks such as filling out forms, visiting family and chitchat around the table become a burden wrought with personal ramifications.

Simply put, is the effort worth the trouble?

The Indonesian Atheist Parents Facebook community was established in April. As an outgrowth of Indonesia’s increasingly vocal atheist movement — showcased most visibly by Karl Karnadi’s Indonesian Atheist group — the group’s specific focus has garnered it followers with a dedicated interest toward what its founders tags as “parenting beyond belief.”

The group’s 70-plus members discuss topics ranging from specifically atheist issues (“What schools are secular?”; “What do you do when a relative asks the children about their religious studies?”; “How do you survive religious holiday gatherings?”) to more general ones about sex education, home-schooling and holiday destinations.

SuratRakyat: Mitos dan Pertanyaan Mengenai Ateisme

Sumber: http://www.suratrakyat.com/article/LppUUbEIga7p____mitos-dan-pertanyaan-mengenai-ateisme

Ateisme adalah bentuk ketidakpercayaan terhadap Tuhan dan dewa-dewi.  Dalam kata lain, seorang ateis tidak memercayai adanya bentuk kesadaran yang biasa disebut Tuhan, dalam penciptaan alam semesta.  Di negara-negara maju yang sekuler, keberadaan ateis bukanlah hal yang aneh. Bahkan, populasi ateis berkembang pesat karena adanya kebebasan berpikir, kemajuan teknologi,  dan pengetahuan yang mudah didapat. Lalu bagaimana dengan ateis di Indonesia? Apakah ada manusia yang tidak percaya kepada Tuhan di negara yang memiliki populasi penduduk muslim terbesar di dunia? Apakah menjadi ateis di Indonesia melanggar hukum dan tidak sesuai dengan sila pertama Pancasila yang menjadi falsafah dasar kenegaraan?

Banyak sekali mitos yang salah mengenai seorang ateis. Cukup banyak masyarakat di Indonesia menanggap bahwa orang yang tidak memercayai keberadaan Tuhan adalah orang yang bebas tak terbatas, tidak mempunyai batasan-batasan moral, sehingga akan merugikan orang lain. Ada pula yang menganggap ateisme sama dengan komunisme atau seorang ateis pastilah komunis. Anggapan awam terhadap ateis ini ternyata banyak yang keliru. Hal ini disebabkan karena adanya stigma buruk mengenai ateisme sehingga penjelasan yang benar mengenai ateisme sulit didapat.

Tidak sedikit juga masyarakat yang bertanya-tanya mengenai ateisme. Berikut adalah pertanyaan-pertanyaan mengenai ateisme yang sering ditanyakan oleh masyarakat, yang saya coba jawab berdasarkan penjelasan dari narasumber dan observasi.

Liputan tentang ateis di Indonesia dan page ABAM (The New York Times)

Berikut cuplikan artikel The New York Times berjudul: “For Indonesian Atheists, a Community of Support Amid Constant Fear”. Page ABAM juga ada disebutkan di artikel tersebut (“You Ask Atheist Answer”). Artikel penuhnya ada di: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/world/asia/26iht-indonesia26.html

JAKARTA — Karina is an atheist, but her friends jokingly call her “the prophet.” That is because she is helping nurture a community for unbelievers in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, where trumpeting one’s disbelief in God can lead to abuse, ostracism and even prison.

“It’s very normal for atheists to be paranoid because the environment does not support them,” said Ms. Karina, 26, who uses only one name. But, she said, “in this group people don’t need to be afraid.”

Indonesian Atheists was founded with a Facebook page in 2008 and now holds regular gatherings. The Internet has offered its members a safe space to air their opinions, and the feeling of community has made them braver about gathering in public. But recent prosecutions of people who made online comments deemed blasphemous by the country’s courts have stoked fears that they too could come under attack.

“Members’ growing outspokenness and courage does not indicate that other people increasingly accept us,” said Karl Karnadi, 29, the group’s founder. He lives in Germany and is candid about being a nonbeliever on Facebook and Twitter. Inside Indonesia, atheists are circumspect about their views, he said, and refrain from public criticism of Islam or any statements that could run afoul of the country’s blasphemy law. Still, he said, that is an advance from a time when people were fiercely secretive.

“At first people think they’re alone,” Mr. Karl said in a Skype interview. “But after we meet each other, we feel like we’re accepted. We’re together if anything happens to us, and that feeling of community is very valuable.”

…full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/world/asia/26iht-indonesia26.html

Atheisme di harian online merdeka.com

Berikut ini kutipan dari wawancara bersama Merdeka.com membahas tentang kehidupan ateis di Indonesia dan komunitas-komunitas yang kami dirikan. Kutipan artikel di bawah bisa dibaca lebih lanjut di http://www.merdeka.com/khas/kami-tidak-percaya-tuhan-dalan-wujud-apapun-komunitas-ateis-5.html

Artikel-artikel lainnya dari Merdeka.com dalam seri yang sama tentang ateisme bisa dibaca di:

• http://www.merdeka.com/khas/manusia-kian-tak-percaya-tuhan-komunitas-ateis-1.html
• http://www.merdeka.com/khas/kumpulan-penolak-tuhan-komunitas-ateis-2.html
• http://www.merdeka.com/khas/jalan-buntu-menemukan-maha-pencipta-komunitas-ateis-3.html
• http://www.merdeka.com/khas/tanpa-tuhan-di-negeri-beriman-komunitas-ateis-4.html

Selamat membaca 🙂

Gagasan siapa mendirikan Komunitas Ateis Indonesia?

Pada Oktober 2008, saya mendirikan komunitas Facebook bernama Indonesian Atheists, disingkat IA (catatan: namanya persis seperti itu dgn istilah Inggris, berbeda dgn ateis indonesia atau komunitas atheis indonesia). Sebelum itu, sebenarnya sudah ada beberapa komunitas ateis di forum-forum atau milis meski belum ada yang dikembangkan serius. Ide dari saya awalnya sederhana saja.

Saya ingin tempat berdiskusi dengan teman-teman saya dari Indonesia yang juga ketemu bertemu di Internet dan sama-sama ateis atau agnostik. Awalnya jumlahnya kecil sekali, kurang dari sepuluh orang. Sekarang tentu ini berkembang jauh dari sekadar online di mana kami bisa berkumpul juga di dunia nyata, saling dukung satu sama lain pada saat ada yang terkena diskriminasi.

Pada 2011, teman saya (salah satunya akan anda wawancara), mendirikan laman Facebook bernama Anda Bertanya Ateis Menjawab, disingkat ABAM beralamatkan di http://FB.ateismenjawab.com dan ini sedang kami kembangkan. Gagasan ini berasal dari teman saya tadi, tapi saya dan beberapa teman lain sangat mendukung dan ikut mengembangkan. Grup IA di atas diperuntukkan untuk sesama ateis dan agnostik, sementara ABAM untuk semua orang, baik beragama atau tidak. Kami mengharuskan format interaksi di ABAM dalam bentuk tanya jawab sehingga menghindarkan debat kusir atau interaksi tidak sehat.

Apa tujuan pendirian komunitas ini?

…

Bisa dibaca lanjut di: http://www.merdeka.com/khas/kami-tidak-percaya-tuhan-dalan-wujud-apapun-komunitas-ateis-5.html

Page Anda Bertanya Ateis Menjawab (ABAM) diberitakan di The Jakarta Globe

Page ABAM baru saja diberitakan di media The Jakarta Globe. Bisa dibaca lengkap di: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/you-ask-an-atheist-answers/582197 (dalam Bahasa Inggris). Jangan lupa juga kunjungi page ABAM di http://FB.ateismenjawab.com 🙂

Discussions between atheists and theists, or those who believe in the existence of God, are fragile events that rarely, though not impossibly, manage to do anything more than reinforce just how disparate the two factions’ stances are. This profound divergence is evidently true in Indonesia, where the concept of atheism is still seen as remarkably foreign, to put it mildly.

Stigmas and assumptions about Indonesian atheists often paint them as smart-aleck contrarians with a penchant for hedonistic nihilism who leave the burden of proof to believers.

To disprove this widespread view, two Indonesian atheists have taken up the call, Karl Karnadi and Virgi Albiant, the latter of which is a pseudonym used by the founder of “Anda Bertanya, Ateis Menjawab” (“You Ask, an Atheist Answers”), an Internet-based forum and community that aims to build a friendly bridge between believers and non-believers.

…

Read full article: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/you-ask-an-atheist-answers/582197

Participate in PhD research about atheists – seeking more Indonesian responses

Bagi yg ateis dan tertarik ikut serta dalam riset mengenai ateis yg di-co-sponsori oleh Atheist Alliance International (AAI), silahkan ikut serta dan baca keterangan di bawah. Ini beda dengan proyek atheistcensus yg sebelumnya ya, yg ini lebih mendalam. Perhatikan bahwa ada batasan waktu keikutsertaan, mohon bantuannya juga untuk disebarluaskan.

Bila ada kesulitan atau pertanyaan silahkan hubungi saya Karl Karnadi di karl@sea-atheists.org. Salam dan terimakasih sebelumnya 🙂

Please participate in PhD research regarding atheists – covering your experiences as an atheist, your involvement (if any) with secular organisations and your perceptions of discrimination and prejudice (if any) against you as an atheist. : http://unrcfr.us.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3QlZZFokgDdWBTf. If you have already participated, thank you very much! If you started the survey, but did not complete it, you should be able to click on the survey link and continue to completion. We are specifically seeking more responses FROM INDONESIA because we have close to enough data for Indonesian responses to be identified at a statistically meaningful level.

Participation in this survey is voluntary and anonymous. Your responses will be combined with others, and no personally identifying information will be recorded. Your honest and complete answers are crucial to making sure survey results accurately represent the experiences of atheists. The survey will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete, and will remain open until 27 March 2013. Please feel free to share this link with anyone that you think would be interested in participating.

Tanya Smith
General Manager
Atheist Alliance International

Facebook Page Baru ABAM

Karena kendala teknis Facebook, facebook page ABAM yg lama tidak dapat digunakan lagi. Untuk mengakomodasi pengunjung ABAM (ABAM-ers) yg tentunya tidak sabar lagi menunggu, kami menyediakan page ABAM yang baru di http://www.facebook.com/ateismenjawab2

Jangan lupa ikuti blog ini dan Twitter ABAM di https://twitter.com/ateismenjawab untuk mengikuti berita terbaru tentang ABAM.

Salam 🙂
-Segenap Admin yg bertugas